The Big Questions Gremlins 3 Will Ask, According To Chris Columbus

It's a simple exercise in deductive reasoning. If the evil, lizard-like gremlins that terrorize innocents in the first two Gremlins movies spawn from the harmless and adorable Gizmo -- first because you got him wet, and later because you fed these creatures after midnight -- then wouldn't it make sense that in order to eliminate the potential of these animals returning you would kill Gizmo and rid the world of this threat?

This apparently will be a question answered in Gremlins 3, a sequel that we didn't even know was being developed, and yet, here we are. Writer/director/producer Chris Columbus spoke with /Film about Patti Cakes, an indie that he helped finance, and the topic turned to his Gremlins 3 treatment. When asked if eliminating Gizmo would eliminate some of the problems in the gremlin universe, Columbus admits that this issues "comes up" in his sequel, commending the website for tracing the root of all evil to the cute creature pictured above.

In elaborating on his script for Gremlins 3, Chris Columbus states:

I'm really proud of the script. It is as twisted and dark as anything, so we'll see. It's always a budgetary conversation when we're going to shoot it. I wanted to go back to the really twisted sensibility of the first movie. I found that was a very easy place for me to fall back into and start writing again so hopefully we'll see that movie soon.

There have been two Gremlins movies, the original (a sweetly sinister Christmas thriller in 1984) and its sequel (a bizarre, high-concept failure that hit in 1990). They're both so wildly different in tone and execution that a third movie could have gone in any direction and fans, at the very least, would have remained curious. Back in 1984, Gremlins looked like this:

Chris Columbus assures /Film that the third movie will continue to rely on puppetry to bring its creatures to life, though minimal CGI will be employed to assist the technique so it looks more contemporary (even though, for 1984, the Gremlins puppetry looks pretty damn great). So, let's weigh in. Would you want to see a Gremlins 3 where adorable Gizmo had to pay for the sins of his unplanned creations by being the sacrificial lamb? Maybe the plot is driven by a need to protect Gizmo after some radical group determines that he's the ground-zero test case for the gremlin outbursts? We shall see.

Gremlins 3 is in development at Warner Bros., a studio experiencing horror success with its Conjuring universe, and the upcoming IT. Maybe a return to Gremlins-ville is just what this studio needs?